"I will go and see," went on the first speaker, while the second imperious voice uttered a "Verfluchter Esel."
This exclamation showed how disagreeable this detail of surveillance was to him who had ordered this trap. A trap for whom? Knowing what he knew, Olivier had not a moment's doubt: the Archduke had learned that a man was with his wife, and he was preparing for his vengeance. He desired an anonymous vengeance, as was shown by the question he had asked of his aid-de-camp, and afterwards his wrath against the "cussed ass" who had mentioned the hothouse door. The lover was to be killed like a common burglar, "to spare Ely's honor," reflected Olivier, who now got up and, leaning his head forward, listened to the voices dying out in the distance. Doubtless the Archduke and his lieutenant were completing the surrounding of the garden. Pierre was lost.
Pierre was lost! Olivier rose to his feet. The possibility of saving the friend he loved so dearly flashed across his mind. Suppose he entered the garden? Suppose he penetrated as far as the greenhouse door, of which one of the watchers had spoken and whence it was evident the man they were about to kill would issue? Suppose he then rushed out so as to make them believe he was returning to town?
The idea of such a substitution with its self-sacrifice took possession, with irresistible force, of the unhappy man who had so keen a longing for death. He began to walk along, at first in the shades of the bank and then of the wall, which he climbed at almost the same place as his friend had done. Then he walked straight toward the villa, which stood silent and still before him, not a ray of light issuing from the interstices of the shuttered windows.
Olivier regarded it with a strange ardor shining in his eyes. How he longed to be able to pierce the walls with his gaze, to penetrate there in spirit, to appear before him for whom he was risking his life!
Alas! Would his courage for the sacrifice he was about to make have been strong enough to withstand the sight of Ely's room as it was at that moment? Could he have supported the picture presented, in the rays of a pink-shaded lamp, of Ely's head nestling close to Pierre's on the same pillow?
The beautiful arm of the young woman was wound round his neck, and she was saying:—
"I believe I should have died before morning of love and grief if you had not come. But I felt you would come; I felt you would pardon me. When I touched your hand, before I could even see you, all my sufferings were forgotten. And yet, how hard you were to me at first! What cruel things you said! How you made me suffer! But it is all forgotten! Say that all is forgotten! You have taken me to your heart again, you know that I love you, and that you let me love you! Tell me that you love me! Ah, tell me again that you love me as you did upon the boat when we listened to the sighing of the sea! Do you remember, sweet?"
And her eyes sought those of her lover, trying to find in them the light of complete happiness, of which her letter had spoken. Alas! it was not there. An expression of settled sadness and remorse dwelt in their depths.
And this was soon to change to one of terror. At the very instant that Ely pressed her more tender, more caressing, more loving lips on the young man's eyelids, trying to drive away the melancholy she read in his gaze, a report rang out in the garden, then a second, then a third, shot after shot. A cry rent the air.